Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester

Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (8 July 1640-13 September 1660) was the youngest son of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria of France.

Biography
Henry Stuart was born in Oatlands Palace, Surrey, England on 8 July 1640, the youngest son of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria of France. During the English Civil War, he and his sister Elizabeth Stuart were imprisoned by the Parliamentarian forces, and some members of Parliament advocated for Henry to be made the constitutional monarch of England following the end of the Second English Civil War and the deposition of King Charles; unlike his older brothers Charles and James, he had not been raised with the Catholic views of his mother or the absolutist views of his father. On 29 January 1649, he and Elizabeth visited their father on the eve of his execution, and the King ensured that Henry did not accept any offer of the crown from Parliament, as doing so would lead to his brothers being executed. In 1652, Henry was released and allowed to go into exile in Paris. However, he had become a staunch Protestant during his education, and, when his mother expelled him from Paris, he joined the Spanish Army at Dunkirk and consistently distinguished himself in battle. He befriended Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, a fellow French defector to Spain who shared a dislike for Catholicism, and Henry nearly married Conde's niece. However, following Cromwell's death and "the Restoration" on 1660, Henry was reunited with his brother in England. He took up residence at the Palace of Whitehall, was made Duke of Gloucester, and was betrothed to the daughter of King Frederick III of Denmark, but he died of smallpox in 1660 at the age of 20.